This guest post is by Liz , Mum of 2 girls aged 5 and 3 who is trying to make it work with her business www.rubyandginger.co.uk . You can chat to her on twitter @rubyandginger or over on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/RubyandGINGER

So here I am the middle of school holidays doing ‘the big juggle’, you know the spreadsheet with the colour codes telling you where your children should be and where you need to collect them from and who in fact is responsible on the days when everyone thinks it is you except for you.
When you look at the Tetris like print out it looks not so much of a holiday but a military timetable
So as someone experiencing this in full force for the first time this summer -I’ve always had a childminder in previous years but she has gone term time only! (how dare she!)
So here a few things I have learnt along the way trying balance work and having fun:

1) People volunteer to have a 5 year old much more readily than a ‘lively’ 3 year old J no idea why!
2) Good old fashioned bartering is the way forward “you have my 2 children for 3 hours and I will have your 1 for 6” is how I’m working today
3) Accept every offer of help you can, it’s like the days of a newborn you think you can manage and will be fine but then wish you had accepted that offer of a friend taking them off for tea when trying to finish a report in time to meet a deadline
4) 6 weeks seems like forever but actually the days fill up really quickly and now I haven’t got enough days to see everyone
5) Last but by no means least make sure the children get some downtime and have a break too, after learning the hard way last week that filling every day with stuff to do come the end of the week all they want to do is nothing so from now on we have at least one day a week where we are staying at home just mooching and relaxing.

Hope you muddle through the juggle , see you on the other side!